Many of my Standard and Plus Edition subscribers are taking advantage of the resources on this newsletter's Web site, which I trust enriches their knowledge of the topics presented both here and at other locations for which I have provided links. However, the chat room has been underutilized. This week I installed new chat room software that contains new features that offer you more ways to take advantage of this free resource.
The chat rooms on www.eogn.com are free of charge. You can chat with a friend or two, collaborate in real-time with family to plan a reunion, or hold an online meeting of your entire genealogy society there, all at no charge. In fact, you do not even need to divulge your name or e-mail address in order to participate in a chat room. You may use either your real name or a pseudonym, as you please.
Chat room registration is optional, but registering gives you more privileges, such as the ability to create your own chat rooms. The registration is free of charge, too.
You can drop in on a public chat room at any time; no reservations are required.The rooms are usually empty, but we do have a standing session on Tuesday evenings. To see how the chat rooms operate, you can drop in on any Tuesday evening at 10:00 PM Eastern/7:00 PM Pacific Time. With these chats, you are welcome to either participate in an informal chat session that has no set agenda or just “listen” in by watching as the conversations scroll along.
Unlike most of the commercial services, registering or using chat rooms on www.eogn.com will never result in your being bombarded by advertising e-mails. Some of the commercial services are very "aggressive" with sending e-mail messages to those who use their free services. That will not happen on www.eogn.com. Your e-mail address will not be used for any advertising purposes and will never be given to anyone else.
Next, multiple chat rooms are now available in the new software. In fact, registered users can even create their own public or private chat rooms and give them appropriate names. Private chat rooms can only be accessed by users who know the chat room's name and are completely invisible to others. If you are planning an online meeting of your local genealogy society, you can create a chat room entitled the "XYZ Genealogy Society Chat Room" or something similar. In addition, you can rest assured that nobody will be able to view your chat session after the meeting. This is because user-created chat rooms are temporary; they are deleted when the creator of the room logs off.
Of course, use of the chat rooms is not limited to societies or other formal organizations. If you and a friend, or several friends, want to hold an online chat session, you may do so at any time on www.eogn.com. This is useful for almost any purpose, including "work sessions" among genealogists working together on research projects. Again, the chat rooms may be public or private (invisible to others).
If you are not sure which room to use, simply select the "default" chat room since that is where most of the informal online chats take place.
Private messages have also been added. In both public and private chat rooms, you can send a private message to another participant that is not visible to anyone else.
To participate in a chat room, go to http://www.eogn.com and click on "Chat Room." To read a short tutorial on the use of the chat room software, go to http://www.eogn.com, click on "Chat Room" and then click on "Tutorial." When in the chat room, HELP is available at any time by clicking on the large question mark in the lower left corner.
